The path to sainthood for Wisconsin-born Father Solanus Casey

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that
supports HTML5 video

Pope Francis announced on May 4th, 2017 that Father Solanus Casey, a member of the Capuchin Franciscan Order of St. Joseph in Detroit and one of the co-founders of the city’s Capuchin Soup Kitchen, has passed the rigorous test assigned to the process of Sainthood, by being elevated from Venerable to Blessed by the Roman Catholic Church.

Beatification is the third step of a four step process to be named a Saint.

Father Solanus Casey was born in Oak Grove, Wisconsin and lived at the St. Francis of Assisi Monastery in Milwaukee, where he was ordained as a priest in 1904.

Because of Fr. Solanus Casey’s holiness, Pope John Paul II declared him Venerable in 1995.

"In truth he was found not to be the brightest student," Pastor Michael Bertram of St. Francis and St. Benedict told CBS 58 News. "In fact it was questionable about whether he would ever be ordained."

As fate, or God, would have it, the Irish American, born to a Wisconsin farming family, would go on to comfort the sick, homeless and hungry.

From Milwaukee's St. Francis of Assisi Monastery, Father Casey would go on to the start the Capuchin Soup Kitchen in Detroit.

Pope Francis has now recognized the miracle healing of a woman with a skin disease who sought the intercession of Father Casey.

"This is the end process," explained Pastor Bertram. "At least for becoming blessed or beatified that's taken literally decades to get."

Father Casey died in 1957 and is buried in Detroit where his following is so great to this day that there is talk of celebrating his Beatification at Ford Field.